If these things will not move you, then let all men know, that live in a sinful condition, that they had better have lived in any part of the world than in these glorious times and places of light ; for when they hear the love of God in Christ laid open to them, if they will come in and receive Christ, and cast themselves upon him, and be ruled by him, and they will not, it shall be easier for Sodom and Gomorrha, for Jews, and Tm-ks, and pagans, and those that worship devils, than for us. For when God offers his free love and mercy in Christ if we will entertain it, and we will none of it, then justice alone shall not condemn us, but mercy shall condemn us ; we will none of mercy. There is not the worst man but would have par- doning mercy. He is content to have God pardon his sin ; but he will not take the whole mercy and love of God in Christ, curing, healing mercy. There are those that live in filthy courses, in profaneness, in swearing, &c. It is food to them to be malicious, to deprave the best things. Serpents feed on poison. They ai-e content to have their sins pardoned, if God will let their filthy nature alone, — their poisonful, blasphemous disposition, that exalts itself against God, — and let them go on in their course. They will have one mercy but not another. But we shall never be saved without entire mercy, healing as well as pardoning. Whom God loves, he doth not only pardon their sins, but heals their nature, and makes it like unto Christ's, holy and pure.
Those that have not the Spirit in them, desiring, altering, and changing, and healing grace, as well as pardoning grace, they are hypocrites.
Let us remember this especially, because it is most useful ; and most men are deceived in this. They think. Oh, God is merciful, and his love is free in Christ ; and though I be unworthy, yet God will have mercy
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upon me. But hast thou a secret desire to partake of God's whole mercy and love, to make thee good, as well as to make thee his son, and entitle thee to heaven, to have thy nature altered, to see the deformity of sin and the beauty of grace ? If thou hadst rather to have the image of God upon thee more than any favour in the world, that thou hadst rather be free from the bondage of sin than any other deliverance : if it be thus, thy state is good.
To hasten ; considering God's free love opened now in Jesus Christ, I beseech you, let us study Christ, and labour to get into Christ daily more and more, that we may be members of Christ ; and desire God, daily more and more, to reveal himself in Christ to us, that we may see his face in Christ, that we may know him in the sweet relations he hath put on him in the gospel.
To know God in general as a Creator and doing good, &c., the heathens did that by the light of nature ; but we should labour to see him in the face of Christ ; that is, to see him appeased and loving us, wishing us well. Concerning eternal glory, that must be by the light of the gospel, and by the Spirit. Therefore in hearing of the word, and reading and meditating, desire God above all to reveal by his Spirit his gracious face in Christ ; that in Christ we may see him as a Father, as a husband, as a friend, in those sweet relations of love that he hath taken upon him. It should be our daily desire of God to manifest his love more to us in Christ Jesns than in any other fruits of his love ; for there be common fruits, as to give us health, and friends, and liberty, and quiet government, which are great favours that we see denied to many nations. Oh, but the soul that is touched with the Spirit of God, and the sense of his own condition by nature, is thus disposed : Lord, I desire that thou wouldst shew the fruits of thy love to me ; but I desire not so much those common fruits, that the reprobates may have as well as I. Oh shew me by thy Holy Spirit that thou hast a particular and peculiar love to me in Christ ; and for this end give me grace to know the mystery of Christ more and more, and the mystery of my natural corruption, that knowledge that may drive me to make much of thy love and grace in Christ ! Now, the Spirit that knows the deep things of God, the depth of God's love to any one in par- ticular, and the depth of our hearts, if we beg the Spirit to reveal the good pleasure of God to us, in time God will shew unto our souls that he delights in us, and that he is our salvation. This shews that the soul is [inj an ex- cellent temper, that it sets a right price and value on things, that it prizeth God's favour above all things. That is the nature of faith ; for what is faith ? Only to believe in general that Christ died, &c. ? No. But to esteem God's love better than all the world ; for God's love is entire in pardoning and curing too. By this the soul is raised up to esteem the love and mercy of God in pardoning and healing sin above life itself: Ps. Ixiii. 3, ' Thy loving-kindness is better than life.'